Open letter of a citizen of Rwanda

1. The majority of the people of Rwanda shouts loud and clear the dictatorial power, bloodthirsty, tyrannical and oligarchic rpf (Rwandan Patriotic Front) Inkotanyi in Rwanda. The evidence to the naked eye: of arbitrary assassinations of opponents are numerous, kidnapping and imprisonment of any person, married not the ideology of the rpf, ideology that refers only to the maintenance of power for life by the clique tutsi rpf to the head Paul Kagame. The elections are rigged and the population vote by terrorism, the last election of the referendum on 18/12/2015 is proof of that. 2. The power of the rpf inkotanyi has been enriched by the diversion of National Heritage, the mass popular and especially an ethnic hutu is exploited in all areas of life in the country on behalf of the party-State the rpf inkotanyi, while Cheating on the international community that it is the development of the country. It’s the clique rpf who holds the entire economy of Rwanda. 3. Arbitrary arrests in mass are multiplying in these last days, a lot of rwandans are imprisoned in prisons die non-official present in each district where the torture and inhuman treatment are frequent until death (Amabagiro Y ‘ Abahutu). The examples in support: in locality uger, sector gitoki, Gatsibo District, Eastern Province; in rwamagana district, province is, carrefour roads rwamagana-Kigali and gishari-Kigali, near the training centre of the police and rice (industry Rice). The power of kigali covers these arrests speaking of hunting vagrants / offenders (Inzererezi). The survivors from these secret prisons become mental handicaps and / or physical. With regard to these informal prisons under the direction of the DMI (Directorate military intergence), we also think the recruitment planned throughout the country to fuel the battle in burundi and drcongo or pagan rituals to offer offerings at the end of the Year, or simply in the plan of the rpf to exterminate the hutus. And this census of demobilized soldiers below the age of 40 and their families? The workouts of burundian refugees, officers and men of troops? 4. Rwandans have the great fear to express their thoughts following the terrorism of the rpf, which is why I raise my voice to ask for your intervention. Rwandan to mobilize to hunt for the power of Paul Kagame and his cronies. International organizations to contribute to the establishment of democracy in Rwanda: The United Nations, the security council of the United Nations, the African Union, sadc, the icglr, the international humanitarian organizations (human rights watch, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL,…) , natural or legal person. Ntabwoba Peter Kigali Rwanda

WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT HIMBARA AND WHY HE LOST THE NUTS

Himbara, whose real name is Murunganywa, was born in Rwanda, but grew up in Gashojwa in Nakivale, Ankole, Uganda and lived a lonely life as a child due to the circumstances of his birth.

He is a son to late Mzee Byabagamba, who fathered him with his step mother, the last wife to his father. This, in any African culture is not only a taboo, but an omen. Himbara had become an unwanted child, which greatly affected his life.

Those who grew up with him told us they know him as a loner who never socialized with other children, but a good traditional dancer as his dad was a trainer.

Himbara endured refuge life as did so many other young Rwandans. He was very unfortunate he was one of those who succumbed to jiggers, which was a common scenario to many a village children who lived a poor and miserable life.

As a youth, he never had the opportunity to succeed academically, life had become such a huge burden.

In the 70s, late Idi Amin as the President of Uganda was targeting Rwandan refugees, forcing many to flee.

Some crossed to Kenya, others to Tanzania and beyond seeking asylum and employment. Himbara was then in his twenties, he also crossed into Kenya.

Life squeezed him so hard, he ended up on the streets of Nairobi, hanging out at spots frequented by tourists.

His unscrupulous charm netted an unsuspecting African-American woman. They hooked-up so quickly and the woman helped him get travel documents and flew with him to Toronto, Canada.

“They lived together unofficially married for about three years,” one of his old friends who met him in Canada says. Later, he adds, “Himbara was able to acquire Canadian nationality and that was it, he abandoned her and disappeared.”

Himbara struggled with life and managed to settle down with another woman, a Lucayan from the West Indies.

Himbara’s life was difficult to describe, but quite interesting. He had been washed, had no single Rwandan trait or values. It was some sort of an adventure. Traditionally Rwandans smoke tobacco. Himbara smoked marijuana, abused drugs and kept dreadlocks.

He was completely a knew character, but consistent with his lifestyle, violent, reckless and understandably selfish.

That was in the 80s. The struggle for Rwandan refugees to return home was then gaining momentum, including as far as Canada. Rwandan refuges in Canada started mobilising funds and resources to support the movement, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF).

They kept a good network and all Rwandans knew who was living where and doing what. Despite the fact that he had distanced himself from the network, but he was known.

He was never supportive of the cause nether did he care to know. His interests were far in South Africa, where he later lived after moving from Canada in the 90s.

He created some sort of an association, called “Solidarity”. While the RPF mobilised and recruited the youths in Canada to join the movement, Himbara was also competing to recruit them to join the Apartheid struggle in South Africa for the African National Congress (ANC).

He never succeeded though, it was such a big task to undertake. The late Claude Dusaidi who was a staunch RPF mobiliser and a prolific political activist, had become a magnet for the young exiles in Canada. Dusaidi knew Himbara very well enough than many of his associates.

In fact when the Apartheid ended, Himbara ceremoniously flew to South Africa and abandoned his wife. While there, he encountered Dusaidi and exchanged contacts as brothers from the same country.

The genocide had ended and RPF had defeated the genocidal regime and was then in power. Dusaidi had been appointed a political adviser to then Vice President, Paul Kagame, and was respected and admired for his determination.

Himbara desperately lived in South Africa. It was hard there. The country was still fragile and shaky. He traveled to Uganda from where he crossed to Rwanda.

He met relatives and a couple of long time friends and the boys he played with in the childhood days in Uganda.

Dusaidi was one of the people who spotted Himabara in Kigali, but wondered what had changed Himbara to make him love the country he never had at heart.

But trust Himbara, his manipulative and fearless antics worked well.

Despite Dusaidi having advised the RPF not to extend any favours or offer him a job, we are yet to establish what means he used to become the President’s Private Principal Secretary.

Unfortunately, Himbara abused the office he was given, including refusing to go through security checks and occasionally harassing presidential guards, and putting the president’s security at risk.

He would abandon his car at the gate, blocking the president’s entrance, whenever guards insisted they had to check it.

The relationship between him and other institutions was always sour. He regularly abused the Prime Minister, several times telephoning him and insulting him. His late night phone calls with insults while drank is what every minister knows about from Himbara.

He would even force and intimidate them and other heads of public institutions into signing on doubtful documents.

Apparently, the number of tenders he forced to be awarded to people of his choice are countless. All these cases are well documented.

Simply put, David Himbara, a womanizer, is a hostile, careless, selfish arrogant and a big-mouthed fella who sucked life and energy out of his colleagues.

He cannot count how many times he had to apologise for dubious acts, until the day he fled the country. He was given another chance to come back.He never changed. It got worse.

The damage he has caused with his subversive activities for Rwanda while in exile has no price tag.

We are investigating what transpired during his time as a public servant. Once all facts are established, conclusively, no sooner than later, we will have the article published.

The international community has ensured legal immunity for Rwandan President Paul Kagame despite evidence of the RPF’s responsibility for war crimes.

Rwanda President Paul Kagama poses with US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, September 23, 2009 (Lawrence Jackson/White House)

The 1994 Rwandan genocide has often been described as the fastest killing spree of the twentieth century, taking up to a million victims in a mere 100 days. One of the key drivers of the murders was fear: fear of an actual army in jackboots and fatigues encroaching by the day, but also fear of their allies on the ground, the so-called fifth column. In the first case, the fear was obviously justified: a Tutsi rebel army had invaded four years earlier and seemed poised to overthrow the Hutu-dominated government. Now newly uncovered evidence suggests another motivator – fear of Tutsi civilians – was also justified.

Several confidential documents from the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) provide chilling evidence that Tutsi civilians worked hand-in-hand with Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to commit crimes against Hutus in 1994. The evidence from these documents is bolstered by lengthy interviews with individuals who witnessed these operations. The ICTR documents refer to RPF’s abakada or civilian cadres and the ‘loyal population’ assisting the RPF in committing massive human rights abuses across the country. Abakada were Tutsi technocrats recruited before, during and after the genocide. They became the interface between the RPF on the one hand, and UN agencies, NGOs, human rights investigators and journalists on the other. The cadres played a crucial role in Rwanda’s statecraft and propaganda system after the genocide.

The crimes cited in UN documents included identifying prominent Hutus that would later be executed, locating and putting Hutus in dungeons, delivering Hutus over to RPF intelligence agents and digging mass graves to bury victims. The ICTR documents—which contain identifying information and cannot be made public—consist of testimony from former RPF members who broke with the regime.

Rwandans Betraying Each Other “ Several confidential documents from the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) provide chilling evidence that Tutsi civilians worked hand-in-hand with Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to commit crimes against Hutus in 1994.” The full horror of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 remains largely unknown in the West, although a significant amount of history has been well documented and verified. What we officially know is that Hutu hardliners and a portion of the civilian population exterminated Tutsis in locally organized massacres, as national broadcasts of Hutu RTLM radio demonized Tutsis and provided a degree of approbation the killers actively sought. Human rights groups, journalists and academics have estimated that at least 600,000 Tutsis were killed from April to July 1994. What shocked the world the most was the ‘popular element’ of the genocide—that Hutu peasants dared to kill their Tutsi neighbors and in some cases, members of their own families that were Tutsis. In his book The Order of Genocide, Scott Straus explores the profile of the genocide perpetrator. After conducting extensive research in Rwandan prisons, Straus posits that most of the murders of Tutsis were carried out by a small group of ‘extremely zealous killers, paramilitaries and soldiers.’ About a quarter of the murders were committed by ordinary Hutus, he says, estimating that seven to eight percent of the Hutu adult population, or 14 to 17 percent of adult Hutu males, actively killed Tutsis or Hutus opposed to the violence.

Yet there are eerie parallels between how the violence played out in Hutu government-controlled and in Tutsi RPF-controlled zones, and how Rwandans from both ethnic groups seemed ready to betray one another as soon as their president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was assassinated on April 6. Ultimately, with its top-down command structure and superior political organization, the RPF was better able to conceal its crimes and control the narrative.

Denouncing and Delivering Hutus in RPF-Controlled Zones A civilian from Byumba in northern Rwanda who joined the RPF during the genocide gave detailed testimony on the role of civilian cadres to ICTR investigators. The prefecture of Byumba was largely controlled by the RPF at the outset of the genocide.

“As of April 8, 1994, there no were no (Hutu) ex-government soldiers in the region of Ngarama, prefecture of Byumba. RPF soldiers and cadres were monitoring the region. They began to enlist all young people into their ranks. At that time, murders and disappearances started. They began to target intellectuals and politicians that belonged to the former regime, and former mayors, town councillors, teachers and business people.”

The witness provided a partial list of victims killed, people he knew personally, including a Hutu agronomist who worked for the NGO Care International. He said the victims had initially run away from RPF forces but were lured back and promised they would be safe and could remain in their jobs. “In the end they were killed, just as they feared,” the witness said. The bodies were dumped in a mass grave near the Mugera market, he said, pointing out that countless peasants were also murdered in other locations throughout the commune.

Excerpt of the testimony of a former RPF soldier to the ICTR In July 1994, units in every RPF battalion were operating dungeons and counted on the ‘loyal population’ to imprison Hutus they considered ‘Interahamwe’’—a Hutu militia that had killed Tutsis during the genocide. The witness said the ‘loyal population’ consisted of Tutsi genocide survivors and Tutsi refugees who had grown up in Uganda and were repatriated to Rwanda. “Former soldiers were arrested and executed in these dungeons, as were Hutu intellectuals, former regime members and all people considered obstacles, known as bipingamizi.”

“Civilians cadres were the ones who identified individuals to be delivered to soldiers. They did so according to their own interests. All soldiers had to do was kill.”

A second document compiled by ICTR investigators reveals the phenomenon of the ‘loyal population’ singling out suspects to be placed in dungeons. The investigators said that when the International Red Cross and NGOs became aware of the existence of the dungeons, the RPF moved the prisoners to other locations where they were executed.

A third ICTR document featuring testimony gathered in 2002 from a civilian cadre said many of his colleagues in Byumba were denouncing and delivering Hutus over to the RPF’s notorious DMI, the Directorate of Military Intelligence, as a matter of procedure. “There were disappearances in the refugee camps. People disappeared after being denounced by certain cadres. The cadres worked with their informants and reported back to DMI.”

A fourth ICTR document revealed similar testimony of DMI agents working with cadres in refugee camps to interrogate people suspected of being ‘extremists.’ The people who were interrogated, for the most part, ‘disappeared.’

A fifth ICTR document, dated 2005 and 54 pages long, describes in detail the killing operations carried out by Kagame’s forces in Giti, a commune where no genocide against Tutsis had been committed. The testimony from a senior DMI official stationed in Giti is downright grisly. He describes DMI mobile units arriving in Giti and neighboring Rutare in April, rounding up Hutu civilians and shooting them dead or hacking them with hoes. He said Tutsi volunteers were recruited into the RPF at a fast pace in these areas and helped dig mass graves. Many of the Tutsi civilians were called the Tiger Force. The Tiger Force would later plant banana groves over the graves in order to camouflage the sites, he explained.

The former RPF official said a network of ‘civil intelligence services’ was created upon the request of Kagame and Kayumba Nyamwasa, then head of DMI. This network was to work closely with DMI to gather intelligence within the civilian population.

Giti became a clearinghouse for murder, according to the DMI agent. Many Hutus were brought there from other areas and the RPF eventually ran out of room to bury the men, women and children they killed. The Hutus were ultimately transported by trucks to Gabiro, the RPF’s training wing at the edge of Akagera Park, where they were executed and burned.

The witness said he believed that Giti was simply one of many areas in Rwanda where the RPF committed systematic massacres of Hutus. When pressed by investigators, he admitted that Giti was a ‘tree that hid a wider forest.’

Other Testimony A former resident of Giti interviewed by this journalist said his father, a prominent Hutu in the community, was seized and killed within a few days after the RPF established a base there in April 1994. To his horror he found his father’s body with several hundred other Hutus killed at Giti’s primary school. “The school courtyard was completely littered with corpses. And the classrooms inside were full. It was terrifying.” The witness, who is of mixed ethnicity with distinctive Tutsi features, said he was saved from being executed because of his mother was Tutsi and her relatives had ties to the RPF. He said he was appalled at how Tutsi neighbors he had known and trusted—people who had never been hurt by Hutus—identified and located Hutus in the village for the RPF to kill. They started with community leaders and moved onto peasants, he noted.

“ A UN court set up to prosecute perpetrators of genocide and serious violations of international law has protected Kagame and his senior commanders: not one indictment against the RPF has ever been issued. In contrast, 95 individuals linked to the former Hutu regime were indicted and 61 were convicted.” Another former RPF intelligence official that broke with the regime said he remembers Tutsi civilian cadres actively killing in Giti and Rutare. “A cadre named Martin grabbed a machete and took a Hutu aside, and cut his head off.” In many cases, soldiers and civilians watched as entire families were butchered, he said.

The former official alleges that civilian cadres came under the authority of the RPF’s political wing, known as the secretariat. The cadres’ role in eliminating Hutus was conceived by members of the RPF secretariat and the high command council, he insisted. There were an estimated 4,000 abakada in Rwanda during the genocide, and by the end of 1994, the RPF had recruited massively and increased their numbers to 15,000.

A soldier now in exile said his Tutsi family hid grenades at their Kigali home before the genocide, and that the RPF had successfully ‘infiltrated’ the capital and other areas of Rwanda, with cadres and commandos by 1993.

A former abakada who worked in RPF-controlled zones between April and July 1994 admitted there were three categories of cadres: those who provided social assistance and political indoctrination among the civilian population, a second category that assisted the war effort and facilitated crimes by denouncing and delivering Hutus over to death squads, and a third group of extremely zealous individuals who participated directly in the killings.

In an interview, the ex cadre said many civilian cadres were caught and killed in Hutu controlled zones before Kagame’s forces seized territory.

But in northern and eastern prefectures that came under RPF control quickly, cadres were free to carry out their dirty work, several sources confirmed. In other areas such as Gitarama, Butare and Ruhengeri, new cadres were recruited quickly in June and July, as those prefectures were seized by Kagame’s troops.

In the prefecture of Gisenyi, for example, vast areas were empty in mid July by the time the RPF took control; a significant number of Hutus had fled to Zaire by then. But some stayed put in their homes and eventually were slaughtered. A soldier with the RPF’s Charlie battalion said civilian cadres operated with DMI units in Gisenyi and eliminated as many Hutus as possible. Further north in Ruhengeri, DMI units massacred Hutus in July and August at Camp Muhoza and buried the victims in mass graves nearby, according to testimony from a former DMI agent given to ICTR investigators.

A soldier initially stationed in Byumba and later transferred to Kanombe said civilian cadres conducted widespread pillaging of Hutu properties and worked closely with political commissars in battalions. The political commissars would call bogus meetings, luring civilians and promising them food or security, only to have them killed afterward, the soldier explained.

“In some cases, civilians were more extreme and zealous than the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) was. The rank and file RPA soldier was trained for battle. The political commissars and civilian cadres who chose to work with DMI had other intentions,” he said.

The soldier said the role of abakada and even Tutsi survivors in crimes is well known but never spoken of inside or outside Rwanda. He alleged that a good number of Tutsis are vehemently opposed to Kagame but are afraid to talk about the past because they are not willing to implicate themselves. “Kagame holds this over their heads.”

“And Hutus have been completely silenced on the issue.” Hutus in Rwanda and abroad who dare accuse the RPF of crimes end up in jail, disappear or are charged with genocide, he noted.

And yet Hutus and Tutsis have given crucial testimony to the ICTR and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) about these atrocities.

A Hutu refugee gave the UNHCR the names of a dozen Tutsis, comprised of abakada and neighbors that killed his teenage sister in April 1994 in the commune of Gituza. He described the Tutsis as a kind of militia, not unlike the Interahamwe. He said the Tutsis were armed with hoes and machetes when they brought his sister to their home while he hid in the garden behind the avocado trees, paralyzed by fear. He then listened in agony as they raped her, one by one, and set the bedroom on fire before leaving the premises. When he rushed in after they left, his sister was dead. The refugee fled to Tanzania, reported the crime but received no justice. The Tutsis responsible still hold prominent positions in the community, he said.

A UN court set up to prosecute perpetrators of genocide and serious violations of international law has protected Kagame and his senior commanders: not one indictment against the RPF has ever been issued. In contrast, 95 individuals linked to the former Hutu regime were indicted and 61 were convicted.

Kagame Given Criminal Reign The international community has ensured legal immunity for Kagame and allowed his regime to commit crimes after the genocide, both in Rwanda and in neighboring Congo, where he invaded in 1996 and his troops were accused by UN experts of possibly committing genocide.

A senior Tutsi officer who fled in 2000 said the RPF recruited and eliminated thousands of young Hutu men in late 1994 and 1995, using civilian cadres in the campaign. The cadres worked with the gendarmerie, presidential guard units, the training wing and DMI agents to recruit and then execute these men, mostly in military camps but also in Akagera Park, he said. “It was done efficiently everywhere.” By that time DMI operations were headed by Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.

Dozens of soldiers and officers interviewed insist that the RPF killed hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians during and after 1994, in addition to Tutsi francophone recruits that were considered suspect by intelligence officers at the training wing.

Several people interviewed said the RPF civilian cadres continue to wield power in Rwanda but are now called the intore. Over the last two decades, thousands of people—both Hutu and Tutsi—have been trained in secret camps at Nasho and Ndego in the Akagera. The intore work at home and abroad, and are comprised of nurses, doctors, teachers, university staff, bankers, taxi drivers, among other professionals. Most are trained to spy on Rwandans in all walks of life but some intore are given specialized training to assassinate and commit other crimes, the sources said.

Nowhere in Rwanda is the state’s presence felt more acutely than at the local level through a neighborhood surveillance system called Nyumbakumi. The Nyumbakumi uses agents from military, political and civilian spheres to exert control: DMI agents, RPF secretariat members and their civilian auxiliaries known as intore monitor every 10 households.